File cabinets may be generally characterized as having either rigid drawer fronts or receding drawer fronts or a combination of the two. The receding drawer front file cabinets may be either shelf-type cabinets or the pullout drawer-type cabinets. This invention particularly relates to pullout drawer-type file cabinets having receding drawer fronts.
In rigid drawer front file cabinets, it is conventional to provide a vertically movable elongated rod or locking bar which permits all of the drawers in the file cabinet to be locked by a key. Generally speaking, the locking bar extends the height of the file cabinet and has horizontally projecting members which can be moved into the path of travel of corresponding tabs or projections on the file cabinet drawers to prevent the opening of these drawers when the rod is in a locked position. However, this locking mechanism is not satisfactory for receding drawer front file cabinets in which the drawer pulls out and, in addition, the drawer front recedes.
Another problem in providing a satisfactory locking mechanism for a receding drawer front file cabinet is that the receding drawer front is usually extremely flexible so that if only one side of the receding drawer front is locked, it is still possible to pull back the other side of the receding drawer front when a pulling force is applied to the handle located in the middle of the receding drawer front.